


allied

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Time, Love Confessions, On the Run, POV Alternating, Pining, Post Season 3 AU, Romance, Sokovia Accords, Unresolved Romantic Tension, not Lincoln Campbell friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:42:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25869121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: The political is personal.Or: Five Times Daisy And Coulson Went Against The Sokovia Accords.
Relationships: Phil Coulson/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	allied

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RowboatCop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/gifts).



> Set after season 3, in a nebulous AU where the war against Inhumans keeps scalating.
> 
> Also, happy birthday RowboatCop!

**one.**

He doesn’t make her sign.

Not like one could make Daisy do anything, but he knows she’d want to comply, if that would make everyone’s lives easier. If that allowed her to keep working, keep helping people, keep helping _her people_. It’s a cruel irony, the only way Daisy would have enough resources to keep Inhumans safe is if she signs the piece of paper that legally puts people like her at risk. It’s not a decision she should have to make, Coulson thinks with a bitter taste in his mouth.

She’s not in any state to make such a decision, anyway. Coulson is going to make sure she is protected from having to even think about it.

“This is happening,” Talbot tells him, bringing up the full text of the Sokovia Accords on the tablet. He is not completely unkind when he says that — he says it like he wants Coulson to get ahead of this, to come to the other side unblemished.

It was only a short time ago that he was showing off what Elena could do in front of Talbot, like it would give Coulson some leverage to protect Inhumans. It all had changed so quickly, because of Daisy, because of Hive. Coulson knows there’s no way he will come on top now, and SHIELD, he’s probably lost that (again). Right now he only wants to secure some kind of break for Daisy.

“Not now,” he tells Coulson. Meaning “not for now” more than “not right now”. “Just give me some time.”

Meaning “give _her_ some time”.

This is not something she should have to deal with, this is not something she _can_ deal with.

Coulson tries to keep her as ignorant about what is going down in the base, let alone the world at large, for as long as he can. Which is not too difficult considering Daisy is still locking herself in the pod and mostly refusing to see people.

But it’s always been a struggle for him to lie to Daisy, to hide things from her, so he takes a moment to check his expression before he goes to see her in her makeshift cell. She has refused to go back to her bunk, even if it’s been days since she got free from Hive, days since Lincoln…

Daisy moves as soon as she hears the door. It’s not panicked anymore, but still the gesture makes Coulson wince.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he tells her.

She shakes her head — it hurts to move any muscle. It feels _useless_. She remembers moving not of her own volition but of Hive’s volition, and that was easy, and now she has to re-learn her whole body. She moves over the bed, leaving room for Coulson if he wants to sit, though why would he risk being close her… God, she’s actually happy to see him, that’s the worst part. He opened that door and Daisy was relieved and happy and now she hates herself for it, because she meant it when she said she shouldn’t have Coulson’s friendship but she knows she couldn’t survive it, if she didn’t.

“Here,” Coulson hands her one of those goodness-packed milkshakes they have been feeding her. She doesn’t mind, they taste fine, she just doubts they are doing anything for her. To get her better. She can’t even imagine getting better.

“Thanks.”

He’s not sure if this is really helping. The lab says it does. Hive had made a number on Daisy’s brain chemistry, and on top of that she had had an extreme case of anemia when she came back. She’s still not hundred perfect yet, physically (as for the other thing, Coulson doesn’t even want to think about it). He sits right next to her on the bed; it’s important that she knows, without doubt, that he is not scared of her, not even one bit. The new scar on his leg itches for a moment, as if wanting to weaken Coulson’s resolve on this. It doesn’t. Coulson won’t let it.

“Thanks,” Daisy says again, whether distracted, repeating the thanks for the milkshakes, or because Coulson has sat so close to her he doesn’t know, and the options are both too sad to contemplate.

She looks so small and pale under the pitiless lights of the pod. The bedsheets are a mess. Then again Daisy spends most of her time sleeping, or at least in bed these days.

“We should get you somewhere more comfortable,” Coulson says. He can’t imagine bringing her back to her own bunk. Too many memories. Coulson was the only in charge of packing Lincoln’s things from his bunk, but he couldn’t get those he had left in Daisy’s, it felt like intruding too much.

Daisy could almost smile at his words, at how wonderfully predictable his insistence is. But he needs to realize that’s not going to happen.

“This what I deserve,” she tells him, looking around the room.

“No.”

Part of her wishes Coulson would just admit what she did was wrong and forgive her, just like Mack. But Coulson can’t forgive her, because he refuses to believe there is anything to forgive. 

“Okay,” she says, too weak to fight against Coulson’s unmovable faith in her. “But I feel safe in here. Don’t make me leave.”

This is why he can’t let her face the whole business with the Accords right now. Daisy would do anything to make sure she never hurts anyone again. But there things that are more important than that, Coulson knows. He can’t let her stay in a cage just because she’s scared.

“Of course I won’t make you. Daisy, I — “

She cuts him off with a joyless laugh.

“I wish you’d still get my name wrong,” she tells Coulson. “Daisy is dangerous. Skye was… just an idiot.”

He thinks about touching her. Something light, touching his fingers to the back of her hand. Any gesture when he feels words are not getting through. But he is too scared of hurting her, of what she might feel if another human touches her. It’s too soon. She needs to heal.

Words will have to do for now.

Or maybe.

“Skye…”

She smiles at him, very weakly, just as the first moment she arrived back at the base from Hive, and Coulson had very pointedly called her _Agent Johnson_ as a way to let her know she was still one of the team, that no matter what she had been forced to do she still belonged in SHIELD. Her smile had been almost invisible back then, but Coulson had seen it.

He sees it now.

**two.**

She is not well yet, but she is well enough to make a choice.

And well, Coulson never wants to take choices away from her.

“I can’t,” she says, which is what Coulson is expecting, and he looks both troubled and relieved by her answer. “But if you tell me that this is what I should do… I will.”

She trusts his judgement. More than her own. Right now, anyway. She is still not sure what traces of Hive still remain in her system, in her mind, perverting every thought and sensation. And grief complicates things — and guilt even more so (and god Daisy hates knowing this, it makes her feel even more guilty, that she doesn’t feel enough grief, that there should be more of it, that she should not want to go on, be alive, without Lincoln… but she does go on, and she wants to live, and she hates herself for it).

“You should go with your gut,” Coulson says.

“Do I even have that anymore?” she wonders out loud, and it’s the closest she’s been to talking about what Hive did to her, how he _changed_ her.

“The Daisy I know,” Coulson goes on, careful not to sound pushy. “She wouldn’t have signed.”

This Daisy feels the edges of her lips tense and curl. The Daisy Coulson is talking about, the tone of his voice, that Daisy sounds like quite something. Coulson trusts her.

“Then maybe I should trust her?” she says, unsure, and then searching Coulson’s eyes for confirmation. 

He nods. A big part of him wishes Daisy was less… _Daisy_. Signing the Accords would mean an easier life, would mean time and space for her to heal. A time and space she very much needs. The reasons he admires Daisy so much are the same reasons why she can’t catch a break. Part of him wishes she would sign. He knew she wouldn’t.

She squirms. She feels all the space around her, after days trapped in her cell. They’re in Coulson’s office, though Daisy suspects it won’t be his for much longer. He hasn’t said anything, of course, and Daisy wishes he had gone to her with his problems more often, maybe this year wouldn’t have

“Coulson. I might have been out of the loop but… I think what it means for me, for me specifically, not signing the Accords.”

Coulson nods. Daisy might not be known to the public but she’s the DoD’s biggest concern right now. A dubious privilege, being on top of that particular list. Because she is so strong, because she’s so deep inside an agency like SHIELD, because she “turned” against her own team. They’re scared of her. They’re more scared of her than they were of Sergeant James Barnes going rogue. Because it’s in her blood.

“I’ll help you run,” he tells her.

Daisy looks at him with big, concerned eyes.

“Are you sure?” she asks, and it almost sounds like the Daisy of old, not the fragile tendril of a voice she’s used since Hive.

Coulson knows what it means, for Daisy to run, for him to help her. He knows what it says on the Sokovia Accords about such a thing. About things like _control_ and _surveillance_ and a hundred other euphemisms that make Coulson feel like he might throw up, that make him double his resolve to see Daisy out of here.

And then the decision is made and there is no time. If she is going to run, she must run _now_. Daisy packs a few clothes while Coulson erases the traces of the SHIELD car he has just, to put it lightly, repurposed. Daisy can figure out the details on the road (Coulson might have repurposed a couple of laptops and gadgets, too.)

She didn’t know, she didn’t know making the decision meant she had to say goodbye to Coulson, within hours. She didn’t know and now it’s 2 a.m. and they are in the garage and she has to say goodbye and she wonders if she had made the same decision if she had known, if she had known they’ll have no time. No time for what? Her thoughts are scrambled and it’s not entirely the legacy of having Hive up there for so long.

Coulson seems to think she is doing the right thing, that’s why he is speeding things up, taking care of everything, taking her bag of clothes and putting them in the trunk of the car, why he’s giving her the car keys without touching her hand. He seems to think this is the right thing to do and Daisy trusts him.

But — 

“You could… run. Too,” she says, biting the inside of her cheek so visibly Coulson winces. “You could come with me.”

It stops Coulson doing whatever he is busying himself with now. It hurts, because there is a reason he hasn’t wanted to _stop_ for the last couple of hours. He steps away from the car and turns to face her, and that hurts too. Daisy doesn’t look healed at all, she doesn’t look like she has even began to heal. She looks as small and pale as in her bright white cell. She barely looks like she can drive herself, let alone escape from a worldwide war waged on her species.

She wants so much for him to say yes. She wants it so much it hurts. So much she feels like a traitor. Lincoln is dead and this is what hurts. She’s sure she can live on without her boyfriend, she is not sure she can walk away from Coulson. Surely something is wrong with her.

“Daisy…”

“No, it was just… just an idea.”

She nods to herself, like silently encouraging herself, and closes her fingers around the car keys, tightly.

Coulson wants to tell her how tempted he is, but he suspects that would only make it harder for Daisy to leave. He doesn’t want to make things more painful for her. Ever. Even if that means hiding how he’d want nothing more than to leave this nightmare behind and run away with her. How much he always wants to just be with her.

But so much of this is his fault (he still sees Grant Ward’s face whenever he closes his eyes, but for different reasons these days) that he needs to atone for it all. He needs her to know why he is saying no to her request.

“Maybe I can still turn things around here,” he says, not believing one word. “Maybe — maybe I’ll be useful.”

God, he hopes he sounds a lot more assured than he feels.

Daisy nods; she is more skeptical about this than he is. That makes sense to her. She just hopes he doesn’t end up backed against a corner he won’t know how to escape from. Coulson sometimes does that.

“I don’t know when I can contact…” she trails off, unable to put into words this unthinkable thing of not seeing Coulson anymore, for a while at least. “But I’ll try.”

“When it’s safe,” Coulson adds.

“When it’s safe,” she reassures him.

She is going to take care of herself, she decides. Here in this garage in the middle of the night. Even if she doesn’t feel like it, after Hive. Even if it would be easier to just — but she won’t let Coulson’s efforts go to waste. No, it’s not that, either. She can’t let the fact that she is not going to see Coulson again in a long time go to waste. She’s going to make sure she’ll be okay.

In that moment when she starts, slowly, motioning towards the car Coulson thinks she looks a bit better. Still bad, but more whole than she’s been the past few days. Maybe she’ll be all right. Maybe he tries very hard to believe he is not just sending Daisy, helpless, into a world of danger. Maybe he’s just being selfish again.

He shifts his weight from one side of his body to the other, and for a moment Daisy thinks he is going to hug her goodbye. It doesn’t happen and she is so relieved when it doesn’t happen. She is not sure, with how she is right now, she would have been able to walk away from him if Coulson had touched her.

She turns her back to him, her hand on the car door.

**three.**

He wonders when Talbot and the higher ups are going to notice. Mack has noticed but Coulson knows he is still loyal to Daisy. He and Mack might not see eye to eye on everything (after all Elena made a different choice to Daisy’s, even if their situations were not similar — Mack wants to make Elena’s life easier by not rocking the boat too much) but Coulson can trust him when it comes to protecting Daisy. 

Talbot hangs on to a strange sentimental idea that Coulson would be that person most interested in finding Daisy, to _get her back_. Coulson _is_ sentimental but he doesn’t want to see Daisy again if it means she’s in a cage. He’s had enough of seeing Daisy in cages for the rest of his life.

There are close calls. He doesn’t think Daisy is being reckless — he does wonder about her mental state, of course, after Hive, after Lincoln. It can’t be easy detoxing and mourning the man she loved while on the run, while raging a war against the whole world it seems. There are close calls and Coulson is learning quick, learning to manufacture logs, erase evidence, he is learning to obstruct and obfuscate, a myriad of crimes. He doesn’t seem to think too much about it, it’s just what needs to be done. Laws are meant to protect people, Coulson doesn’t feel too inclined to follow laws that do the opposite. Talbot seems exasperated with him, but unsuspecting. Power is slipping from him, too, Talbot. The government doesn’t trust him either. His lack of results. Coulson knows he’s to blame, in a no small part. He used to think Talbot was a good man; maybe he still thinks it, that’s why he’d rather see him out of SHIELD.

Daisy wonders how long he can keep this up. She hasn’t talked to Coulson since she left but oh she knows what he is doing. It’s hard to miss. It’s hard to mistake it for Daisy being lucky every time, or being skilled every time. She has an ally. It makes her feel a bit better that he didn’t run away with her — he wasn’t kidding about wanting to help from the inside.

Someone is bound to notice and Daisy hopes when that happens Coulson has time to let Daisy help him, just like he helped her. Has been helping her.

There are close calls; Daisy doesn’t have the luxury of playing it safe. 

Coulson hasn’t seen her face in months but she has seen his. She didn’t set out to do so specifically — the close calls? they were really close — and she had to work hard not to let it get to her. Coulson so close, so within her reach.

He manages to send her intel. Most of her job these days is figuring out what SHIELD is going to do and getting there first. Someone must suspect there’s a leak, right? Talbot was never the sharpest tool and maybe she should be grateful. Maybe it’s what’s keeping Coulson safe.

He keeps feeding Daisy intel and she knows it’s just data passing through the screen of her computer but she likes to think of it as Coulson talking to her, sending her messages, so even if they can’t see each other yet Daisy is not entirely alone. So she can tell herself she didn’t really walk away from him.

**four.**

His days in SHIELD (or whatever SHIELD is now, this Frankenstein’s monster between Talbot’s misguided instincts, the government overseeing the whole operation, and the loyalties of old agents, most of whom are out of the place anyway) must be numbered, for him to keep taking these risks.

She wasn’t expecting him to contact her directly, but the information seems time-sensitive and just plain sensitive enough.

There are things that not even the most secure of secure lines can handle, things he has to know Daisy has received, this time. He normally shouts at the void with this information, hoping out of stubborn hope that it reaches her, getting wind a week or two later, of the moves she’s made on the chess board based on his intel. Not this time, this time he has to see her eyes. It doesn’t matter that it _feels_ good to see her eyes.

They’re in a public space, big crowded railway station at a crowded hour. Which should be a risk but Daisy has learned it’s safer this way. Definitively safer for Coulson. He can blend in. People won’t think twice upon seeing some dude who looks like him. It’s misguiding of course — Coulson is the least ordinary man she’s ever known — but right now Daisy is very happy that he has that face, those looks people tend to forget about the moment he leaves a room.

It’s public and very covert and Coulson leans into her and slips the flash drive into her pocket. Daisy fishes it immediately, to make sure it’s there. She closes her fingers around it. The plastic is lukewarm, from Coulson holding it in his hand.

Daisy counts the cameras from the corner of her eyes. She’s not worried, it’s a big world and no one knows exactly in what part of the country she’s now, and she’s wearing a cap, and by the time the government’s Stark-designed algorithms figure out this right here is Daisy Johnson’s face she will be long gone.

But she doesn’t just have herself to worry about, and she’s almost grateful to Coulson for shaking her out of that habit, for getting her out of her own head. She spends too much time there these days, anyway, and even though there is no one else up there (finally. thankfully) it’s still not the greatest place.

“You talking to me… that’s probably a crime. Right?” she asks Coulson.

“They’d probably lock me up a few days, yes,” he says. 

Daisy knows that’s probably not true, but she doesn’t hate the sound of it. She _hates_ that this is putting Coulson at risk, but she doesn’t hate this joke between them. 

“That’s exciting,” she tells him.

He shrugs.

“I like to live dangerously.”

He looks at her, wants to look at her for as long as it’s safe, not knowing when he’ll have the next chance to do so. That’s the deal he made — and he doesn’t regret it for a moment. Helping Daisy run has probably saved countless Inhumans from imprisonment or worse. Coulson can’t regret being part of that.

And she looks good, so much better than the last time they saw each other. It has been a while, but still, Coulson was afraid that loneliness and a life on the run hadn’t allowed Daisy to heal. But she looks healed, in a way. Worried, scared, on the warpath. But whole.

He scrutinizes her face for signs of battle, some bruise or fresh scar; he is up to date with her feats (crimes, the official reports and both CNN and Fox News call them instead) and he knows she’s been in fights she has won. But there are no marks. She’s being careful. Coulson feels impossibly relieved by that.

Someone passes them close by, walking a dog, and Daisy throws them a sideways look, not panicked, not tense, just making calculations in her head. It hurts to tear his eyes from Coulson even just a second, but she’s glad for the reprieve, too. It’s been months, it’s too much for her, being able to see his face even if it’s just for the few minutes it takes him to pass the intel.

“They are pulling me back from the field,” he tells her. “They don’t trust me out here. They’ll have me stuck in comms.”

“Like they did with YoYo,” Daisy says.

He nods. Last month they had taken Elena’s lanyard. She was still in SHIELD, but she couldn’t be left unsupervised. They only kept her in the organization because it was easier to monitor her like that. And because Talbot knew it would have made Mack into a problem, a straight up enemy, otherwise. It had been a measure of appeasement.

“They are treating you like an Inhuman,” Daisy points out.

She’s horrified, but Coulson looks… if she didn’t know any better she’d say he looks _proud_. Stupid, stupid man.

“Some might argue I’ve been... contaminated.”

Daisy knows he doesn’t mean the Kree blood inside him. And the word is horrible — the kind of word Lincoln used to say about himself, about Daisy, but the way Coulson uses it, it sound like the _opposite_ of how Lincoln did.

She gives him a little frustrated groan.

“For god’s sake, Phil, stay safe,” she says, voice lower than the rest of their conversation.

She is not sure why she has used his first name here, other than to make sure Coulson knows she’s serious. He has to stay safe, otherwise what was the point?

He almost wishes Daisy would repeat her offer, though, of running with her, of running together. He’s not sure he’d be strong enough to reject it, now. Strong enough to reject her.

“I have to go,” he says instead. Which is the opposite of what he means to say.

“Yeah, it’s risky,” Daisy says, shifting her glance away from him and around them, looking for potential threats. She holds up the flash drive in her hand. “Thanks for this. You’re making a difference.”

He knows what she is trying to do. He shakes his head.

“ _You_ are making a difference,” he corrects her. He reaches out and wraps his hand around the curve of Daisy’s shoulder. Without thinking. And now that she thinks about it, this is the first time they’ve touched since… well, since before Hive, he guesses.

Daisy lifts her hand and touches her fingertips to the back of Coulson’s hand, and the ridges of his knuckles.

“You should go,” she says, not looking at his eyes. 

She lifts her hand from his, and Coulson takes it as a clue that he should let go as well. It’s not easy. He frowns and gives her a little encouraging nod, before pulling back from her and disappearing into the crowd. He’s good at that. He’s not worried about being made. He’s not thinking about risks at all right now.

Daisy had thought that walking away from Coulson had been the hardest things she’d ever done in her life.

She was wrong.

Letting him go is way harder.

**five.**

“It looks like your old van,” he comments.

“Yeah, it kinda does,” Daisy says, looking pleased that he’s made the connection, or that he remembers how her van looked at all.

It doesn’t look like a wartime refuge. He is not sure what he was expecting. Daisy is number one on the long list of people the government is after, and yet it doesn’t seem like she has let fear rule her life. Coulson should have known she wouldn’t let it. He admires that (he admires so many things about her, but that was the point, wasn’t it, why he is here, why he’s somewhere on one those lists as well). It doesn’t look like a shelter either. It looks cozy and lived in, if a bit too small.

She offers him a coffee — and immediately realizes there are at least a couple of mugs with dry traces of black liquid all over the desk, and she blushes a bit. After all these years he must know she is messy, but she doesn’t want him to think she’s unclean. The flat is one room only and Daisy watches him sit on her bed in front of her makeshift desk, and he seems unbothered by the empty mugs, her mess.

It wasn’t easy getting here, making sure he wasn’t followed, he’s still the best bet Daisy’s enemies have at rooting her out. There are whole _files_ on the subject, and once upon a time a veiled threat from Talbot the man immediately regretted when he saw Coulson’s reaction. As much he secretly wears this as a badge of honor (that the world knows he is something Daisy Johnson cares about) it means he has to be extra careful: he can never be a liability to her, he decided a long time ago. So it wasn’t easy getting to her house, but it wasn’t too hard either. The government (and a cannibalized version of SHIELD bearing the ATCU initials besides it, again) wants to keep a semblance of normalcy at all costs, and only Inhuman-sympathetic YouTube channels and podcasts call it “the war on Inhumans”. 

“You’re busy,” he points out, gesturing towards the spread of paper and the open laptop on her table.

Daisy hands him the coffee.

“I have some time for you,” she jokes.

She looks happy to see him. After all that’s happened, she looks uncomplicatedly glad he’s here, sitting in front of her. That alone makes Coulson losing SHIELD worth it.

“Scoot,” she says, using her palm to flatten the bedsheets in an absent-minded tic as she sits next to him on the bed.

And she sits close to him, remembering a time when he did the same, back when she couldn’t stand the idea of anyone being close to her but somehow she could stand Coulson doing just that.

Daisy tries not to be too obvious about how she keeps smiling at him. She can’t help it, she’s just so happy to see him. It’s not like the last time they saw each other — they didn’t have time then, being happy to see Coulson felt like an impossible luxury, if she couldn’t keep him, if she had to let him go. She’s not sure she gets to keep him now (or if Coulson even wants to stay) but at least they are not in _immediately_ mortal danger if they share a coffee right now. It makes the coffee taste so good and so sweet, Daisy licks her lips after every sip, to savour it.

“It’s good,” Coulson says, kicking himself mentally for it, because of course it’s not, it’s bland and crappy instant coffee and it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted and Daisy is going to think he’s a fool.

Her smile is a bit strained now, like Coulson has intruded in her thoughts a bit. Are we sure he’s not Inhuman and can read minds? she wonders idly. It would explain many things. She shifts the subject, trying to feel less awkward.

“How does it feel to be unemployed, Phil?”

He makes an amused and hopeless sound. He hasn’t thought about it. He has been trying not to think about it. He’s been in SHIELD since he was eighteen.

“I’m not exactly unemployed.”

“Being an enemy of the state is not a job,” Daisy teases. “Believe me I’ve tried to make it pay. It doesn’t.”

He smiles, more at being here with Daisy, no impending threat that makes him count the minutes, the seconds really, spent in her presence, than anything. But he has to admit he had no plan — which is absurd, because he has been waiting to be kicked out of SHIELD for months now. He should have prepared something. Maybe he should have gone to Mack and Elena, their safehouse, figure out what the other are doing, what else he can do to help. His only plan for the future was this: coming to Daisy as soon as he was free to do so. He never thought further than that.

“I think for now… it’s good enough that you are safe,” Daisy says.

As if he was the one who had been in danger, as if he was the one who is the target of government-backed terrorism. It makes him feel useless. Everything he’s done by staying in SHIELD when he knew SHIELD was beyond saving… what did it amount to? He leaves the empty mug on the table, besides Daisy’s other empty mugs. He looks down at his hands, they are empty. All he did… nothing.

“I should have come with you when you asked,” Coulson says. “A year ago. I should have just… run away.”

Daisy shakes her head.

“No, I got what you were trying to do,” she says. “Well, not at first, at first I was hurt. But you were right in wanting to help in your own way. I was just being selfish.”

“Selfish?”

“You know…” she says, gesturing with her hand and then placing that hand very carefully on Coulson’s shoulder, as if to make a point. She leaves her coffee on the table. “That night I wasn’t thinking about the Sokovia Accords or Inhumans or… anything really. Not even about Lincoln. I just wanted to stay with you, even when I knew I couldn’t stay.”

It doesn’t feel as difficult as she thought it would be, admitting all that. 

Coulson just stares, his lips parted, shocked at what he is hearing. Not just because of what it means (though surely it _can’t_ , he keeps thinking, he must have misunderstood) but because no one has ever said something like that to him in his life. Not even remotely like that.

“Coulson, you’re too nice about this but don’t let me go on,” she adds, giving him a smile Coulson feels is way too sad for the situation. “I’d be happy to just have your friendship. More than happy — I’d be _lucky_.”

Coulson says nothing for a moment. It’s deliberate, he wants to make sure Daisy has room to clear it up if this is just a misunderstanding, or take it back if she immediately regrets it. But she doesn’t. She tenses like she is bracing herself for something and Coulson grabs her hand in his hurriedly, clumsily, because he can’t stand her not knowing for a second longer.

“Daisy… could you…?”

He has no idea what he is going to ask but he doesn’t get to finish it. He moves, astonished at his own daring, into Daisy’s space, kissing her mouth while he is still holding her hand.

The coffee is even better and sweeter on his lips, Daisy decides, opening her mouth under Coulson and pulling in closer, little encouraging noises at the back of her throat so he’ll kiss her harder. He’s careful and Daisy gets that, it’s why she loves him, why she fell in love with him oh so long ago, but he doesn’t need to be. Not right now.

Daisy grabs him by the back of his neck, fingernails dragging across tender skin. It raises a shiver in him that brings him back to the reality of it. He chuckles, pulling Daisy for a moment to see her eyes. Fuck, he thinks, he really took the longest road here.

“Now I know I definitely should have run away with you,” Coulson tells her.

Daisy laughs against his kisses.

“That’s really nice to hear,” she confesses.

“Yeah?”

She replies with a deep, dirty kiss, subtly (okay, not so subtly) maneuvering them to a more horizontal version of what they are already doing.

Coulson only realizes he was still wearing his jacket the moment Daisy peels it off him, attacking his clothes with an impatience that makes him grin. He pushes her against the mattress when it’s his turn to help her out of her jeans, her underwear.

“I think under the last iteration of the Accords what we are doing is definitely illegal,” Coulson says, very close to Daisy’s mouth. He keeps it light, teasing.

“You don’t have to sell this more,” she replies in an equally playful tone. “I’m already into you.”

Coulson makes a choked sound at the back of his throat, between amused and disbelieving. It is indeed unbelievable to think that someone like Daisy, that _Daisy_ , could want him. Perhaps the most unbelievable thing in this brave new world.

She needs this to escalate a lot quicker than this, Daisy decides, her skin humming in a way that is not entirely unlike that moment before she uses her powers, and her whole body stands to attention. That gives her an idea and she grabs Coulson by the shoulders and exchanges their places, so that her weight is on him and she can work his belt and trousers more freely. Coulson brings his hands to his head when Daisy wraps her hand around his cock, running his fingers through his hair and closing his eyes tight, like this is too much.

And it is too much and Coulson grabs her arm.

“Come here,” he tells Daisy, and for some reason she seems really happy about his request.

More like a plea, really, but Daisy is magnanimous.

She reaches over Coulson to retrieve a condom from a box under the bed, because hey, there’s being unlawful and there’s being absolutely reckless in the middle of a war and Daisy is extremely pleased she added this item to her basic supplies even though she was very sure she wouldn’t have a chance to use them. Uh. Funny how things turn out. Plus, it gives her an excuse to fool around with Coulson’s dick some more before climbing on top.

Limbs bump awkwardly, comedically almost, but then Daisy’s mouth finds Coulson’s throat and their bodies meet halfway and it goes back to being perfect.

She straddles him, fingers grabbing at his hair, tilting his face towards her. Coulson’s hands go to her waist, and it’s not exactly careful anymore, he pulls her towards him and in a moment he’s inside her and Daisy is moving, riding him as she thinks back on their words just now, the unlawfulness of it; she feels powerful, all these things they have defied for each other. Enemies, biology, the law. Even fate itself.

“You’re always breaking the rules for me,” she tells him. She slows down a bit, the weight on Coulson good but heavy. She traces the line of Coulson’s mouth with her index, a faraway look like she’s thinking very hard about something. “Every since day one. Hell, asking me to join SHIELD was already breaking a lot of rules, I know. And then… when I got shot, all you did to save me. You’ve always broken every rule for me.”

Coulson swallows, his hands still gripping Daisy’s waist tightly. He remembers — and the memory of it is not pleasant at all, but remembering how much he had felt for Daisy, even back then, that memory is not exactly out of place now, here, with what you’re doing.

“You taught me there are more important things than rules,” he confesses. “If anything, I learned it from you.”

It still gets to her, all these things Coulson says to her. He’s wonderfully predictable and she doesn’t want him to change one bit. She doesn’t mind that he sees it, the effect his words always have on her. 

She starts moving again, feeling the pull of impatience again. Coulson seems to sense her mood, because he picks up the pace himself, and then he reaches one hand between their bodies, slick fingers over her clit, to get them both there and fast. It works.

When Coulson tries to pull away right after, to leave Daisy some space he bumps his head against the wall. Hard. There isn’t room enough for the maneuver.

“Sorry,” Daisy says, reaching her hand to his head and rubbing the hurt spot with the pad of her thumb.

“It’s okay,” Coulson tells her, actually enjoying the way she is caressing the back of his head right now.

“Sorry, this bed’s not made for more than one person.”

“It’s fine.”

“We’ll have to get another mattress,” she says, sounding very sure of it.

“We will?”

“This house is safe,” Daisy tells him. “You’d better stay here with me until — “

Coulson laughs.

“Until what?” he asks, drunk on the absurdity of that proclamation. He has no idea what Daisy could possibly say that sounds like a viable plan. “Until you topple the government?”

She frowns at him a bit. He doesn’t need to sound so doubtful.

“That was the idea, yeah.”

He laughs again. More like chuckles. More like chuckle-kisses Daisy’s neck. That’s more accurate. And suddenly it’s not so absurd anymore, because if someone is going to topple the government any time soon it will definitely be this woman between his arms. Yes, he can stay with her until then. He can stay.

Daisy feels him sigh against the curve of her shoulder.

“It’s a good idea,” Coulson says. 

He sounds sleepy. In a good way. Daisy doesn’t mind. She grabs his arm and tries to fit it, and the rest of Coulson, Tetris-like, into her space. This is still not fit for two people. But that’s okay, she decides, since they have gone against much bigger enemies than a bed.


End file.
